Tim Crowley has been hired to oversee football officials in the Lone Star Conference, it was announced Tuesday by league officials.
Crowley, who has 30 years of experience officiating college and high school football in Texas, will begin his duties immediately. Working under the supervision of LSC commissioner Stan Wagnon, Crowley will be responsible for the selection, training, assignment and evaluation of officials for all football games hosted by LSC member schools.
“The LSC is unique as the only Texas-based NCAA Division II football conference, and therefore we view officiating games in this league as not only a great responsibility but also an elite opportunity,” Wagnon said. “We’re bringing in Tim to cultivate that perspective, but we’re also making a commitment to providing our football officials with the resources they need to excel in such an important role.”
“As a conference, we’ve been doing some things aimed at helping our football programs return to national prominence, and this renewed commitment to football officials demonstrates a similar desire to become more prominent in officiating circles as well.”
Crowley’s background as a veteran official for the Big 12 and other conferences will allow him to supervise the LSC’s football officiating program with similar principles to those of the College Football Officiating (CFO), LLC, which was formed in 2008 to further develop and standardize football officiating at the Division I level. The CFO seeks to establish regional rosters of officials for assignments, while also ensuring that all officials receive the same training, understand the same philosophies, and utilize the same mechanics.
Crowley, an Austin resident who also serves as Supervisor of Officials for the Austin Football Officials Association, will be looking to improve upon the evaluation process for LSC football officials as well. He plans to implement an empirical system to evaluate officials, as he views evaluation as a critical component to the analysis and improvement of the officiating program.
“Just like student-athletes across the region know that playing Lone Star Conference football is a big commitment, I want guys across the state to see officiating in this league as a great opportunity,” Crowley said. “To make it so, my goal will be to provide officials with excellent training and education, a chance to work the most visible small college football games around, and the promise of a fair and thorough evaluation of their efforts.”
The LSC, founded in 1931, has a proud history as one of the nation’s greatest small college football leagues. The conference made its mark in the NAIA, especially from 1969 to 1979 when four LSC schools combined to win 10 national titles in that 11-season span. The LSC became affiliated with the NCAA in 1982 and now is annually well-represented in the Division II playoffs, with more than a dozen former players currently on NFL rosters.
The league is in the midst of a push to become the nation’s premier Division II conference. In football, the LSC has two particular initiatives geared toward putting its member schools in the national spotlight – the Lone Star Football Festival at Cowboys Stadium, which has LSC teams competing at the greatest football venue in the word, and the GSC-LSC First and Ten Challenge, which pits LSC teams against premier Division II non-conference foes from the Gulf South Conference.
Anyone interested in becoming an LSC football official should contact Tim Crowley at tim@lonestarconference.org.